Gin-Drunk, Creed-Drunk — Jude the Obscure

Michaelmas has passed. They have left Donn's house for top-floor lodgings nearer the centre. Jude has done a few days' work. His health is precarious. Arabella says she has a bargain for her trouble: she will have to hawk black-pot and sausages to keep an invalid she had no business to be saddled with. He laughs that the greatest mercy would be to be served as they served the pig. The landlord hears a shoe flung at his head and decides they must be married.

Jude asks her to write to Sue, because he is ill and would like to see her once. He will not go behind Arabella's back. She refuses, calls Sue a rat that forsook the sinking ship, then a worse name. He has her on her back on the couch and says he will kill her if she speaks that way again. He could not kill the pig. She offers to send if she may stay in the room. She writes a note and does not post it. After two days of empty trains he knows. A silent resolve grows. One midday the chair is empty.

He rides toward Alfredston swathed like alabaster, then walks the five miles in rain without an umbrella. At the church he sends a boy for Mrs. Phillotson. Don't be unmerciful. The letter killeth. She stays. She praises his remarriage as the right thing. He calls it a meretricious contract. She has wrestled and fasted and nearly brought her body into subjection. They kiss. She admits it has been a nominal marriage only. He begs her to run away: he was gin-drunk, she creed-drunk. She refuses and runs to the east end. He takes his blanket and goes. She stops her ears till his coughs have passed. He looks back once from the corner of the green, then crosses the down by the Brown House, feels his mossed carving behind the milestone, and reaches Christminster at ten.